Let them eat cake.

“The next revolution is going to be about parking,” predicts one of the characters in this killer satire about bourgeois dissatisfaction boiling over into terrorism. Narrator David Markham infiltrates a seditious group hailing from Chelsea Marina, a middle-class ghetto, in an attempt to make sense of his ex-wife’s death in a terrorist bomb. He discovers how easy it is for mindless violence to become a plausible option when causes are involved. Ballard’s vision of terrorism becoming the new black is kooky as hell, of course, but it’s a thought provoking romp nonetheless. (7/10) Michael Williams 31 October 03

Millennium People by JG Ballard is out now, published by Flamingo.

useful link: harper collins: millennium people